The present invention relates generally to a high speed analog-to-digital converter for use with a personal computer, and more particularly to a converter board for an IBM PC/AT.
There are situations in which signals in the form of pulses are captured and stored in analog form on a medium such as video tape for later analysis. It is desired that the signals when read from the tape be sampled at a high rate, and that the amplitude value of each sample be digitized and transferred to a computer for the analysis.
The prior method of performing this A-to-D conversion was minicomputer based with a very complex expensive circuit and was not reliable.
United States patents of interest include No. 3,371,337, to Williams, Jr., which discloses a simple construction and increased speed. The patented converter is described as smaller, less expensive, simpler and more reliable than previous constructions. A high speed analog-to-digital converter is also set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,366 to Lewis, Jr. This patent speaks or an analog sample rate of 40 MHz with a 25 nanosecond spacing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,715 to Doluca describes a flash converter and high speed microprocessor compatible analog-to-digital converter circuit.